Ms. Joyce is an exquisite writer, and this book is one of her best (along with The Music Shop). Four siblings travel to Italy because of the unexpected death of their father. At the Lake villa, they also meet the much younger woman their father has married recently. This is a relationship story, about fragile familial bonds, the paralysis of grief, about beauty and pain. The writing is beautiful and very evocative, so be warned: tears will emerge. Overall, this is a moving, insightful and imaginative story with a brilliant ending. Highly recommended.
Category: relationships
A Table For Two – Amor Towles
Towles is a great writer of novels (A Gentleman in Moscow, The Lincoln Highway). This book features his shorter fiction. First, there are six short stories set in contemporary New York: art in the Metropolitan Museum, dining at Balthazar, music at Carnegie Hall – what’s not to love! These stories feature brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise in a marriage. And second, the book contains a novella set in 1938 Los Angeles featuring Eve from Rules of Civility in a noirish role, in a classic crime caper. Towles writing is stylish and compelling, as always.
Three Days In June – Anne Tyler
Gail is a 61-year-old administrator at a girl’s private school who will attend the wedding of her daughter Debbie tomorrow. Then her ex-husband Max shows up unannounced, with a cat. This is a tender relationship book about love and marriage, both the current situation and the past. As always, Ms. Tyler’s writing is sublime: “Gail wonders why she has so many irritating people in her life”. It is the very ordinariness of the story and characters that is so attractive. In short, a delightful mix of pathos and humour, and yes, even empathy.
Intermezzo – Sally Rooney
Ms. Rooney (author of Normal People) has written another superb relationship book. Peter and Ivan are dissimilar brothers, 10 years different in age who are grieving the recent death of their father. The younger brother begins a relationship with an older woman. Meanwhile, the older brother has a complicated relationship with two women. Can you care passionately for an unsuitable person? The prose is exceptional with frequent stream-of-consciousness thinking. And there is a need for honesty, and for forgiveness by others and by oneself. Highly recommended.
The Briar Club – Kate Quinn
Consistent with previous Quinn books (The Rose Code, The Alice Project), this is a book about women and their female relationships. The context: Washington DC from 1950-54, so the era of paranoid McCarthyism and racism. Women living Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house, are united by the Thursday night Briar Club for potluck food and conversation. This book about female friendships and secrets makes for compelling reading.
The Mighty Red – Louise Erdrich
My first book in 2025 is … great! The setting is the Red River Valley in North Dakota, with ordinary people coping as best they can with the impending financial collapse of 2008-09. There is a premature wedding, and an embezzlement with a masquerading bank robber. The people are flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. There are also dark secrets in the aftermath of a tragic accident. And finally, there is a brilliant understanding of human relationships with the environment. Ms. Erdrich’s writing reminds me of Lionel Shriver, high praise indeed.
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt
Tova is a 70-year-old widow grieving the recent death of her husband and the disappearance and presumed death of her son more than 30 years ago. At its core, this is a relationship story, and remarkably, a key relationship is with Marcellus … a giant Pacific octopus living in a Washington State aquarium. The storyline sometimes come perilously close to the plot of a soap opera (there is a happy ending, after all) but remains a charming and witty story.
The Little Village Of Book Lovers – Nina George
Full disclosure: this is an unequivocally sentimental book about love, the love of books and love between people. The context: a little town in the south of France in the 1960s. There are two themes. First, the orphan Marie-Jeanne and her foster-father Francis (a bric-a-brac dealer) start a mobile library; chapter 10 has the provocative title “Books are not for cowards”. Thus literary choices become the basis for self-awareness and friendships. But second, Marie-Jeanne can “see” the marks Love has left on the village people. Can she facilitate the union of soulmates? This is an elegantly crafted examination of the elusive nature of love, and is completely charming.
The Husbands – Holly Gramazio
Lauren returns to her London flat to discover her husband Michael but … she is not married! When Michael enters the attic, a different “husband” emerges. Amazingly, her attic is capable of creating an infinite supply of husbands so Lauren recycles them, looking for an ideal (or acceptable) married relationship. This is an original and totally entertaining book.
What David Read 